Bleeding Fire
by Culebra del Sol
Summary: Sparda's betrayal of the demon world was so profound, so reviled, that no one would expect another demon to emulate him. And yet someone did.


Hell.

Tartarus.

Inferno.

The realm of the afterlife inhabited by demons dedicated to punishing those who have sinned in the mortal world. For the infinite millennia since the universe was split, Hell had coexisted with the Realm of Light in a relatively peaceful balance.

This balance was shattered when a demon named Mundus arrived.

Cruel, greedy and petty, Mundus skyrocketed through the ranks of power until he was able to achieve dominion over the demon world as its king. Any and all resistance was crushed and subjected to the king's sadism. Treachery, cruelty and depravity were met with reward instead of condemnation, and the souls that achieved redemption in Hell were never released. His rule transformed the demon world itself from a realm of retribution and redemption to a cesspool of evil.

All of this was not enough to quench his lust for conquest. Mundus soon launched a total war on the human world, intent on uniting the two realms into one under his banner. An untold number of lives were destroyed in the chaos, with entire civilizations razed to the ground and torments reserved for the dead inflicted upon the living. The world was engulfed in despair, waiting for Mundus to declare victory.

Yet the world's hope soon arrived in the form of a demon named Sparda.

One of Mundus's high generals, Sparda wielded immense power. Yet unlike many of his fellow demons, he had a sense of profound honor. The more he fought, the more he saw of the humans' plight and the more sympathetic he became, until the demon grew to love the humans and loathe his own kind.

Soon, Sparda rebelled against his brethren, defeating Mundus's armies and sealing the demon world from the human world. He even met and bested Mundus in single combat, although he failed to permanently kill the demon king. This betrayal was so profound that it earned the enmity of the entire realm.

Two thousand years later, Sparda fell in love with a human woman named Eva and sired twin sons, Vergil and Dante. At the same time, Mundus resurrected and was tried crossing over into the human world yet again. He knew Sparda was still a threat, and so his first priority was to destroy him and his legacy. His chance for revenge arrived when one day, for reasons unknown, Sparda disappeared from the world.

Sparda's family was soon hunted down. Eva was killed in front of her children, and Vergil was captured by the demons and tortured, although he eventually escaped. Their failure to find and kill Dante, however, would prove to be Mundus's downfall, for in twenty years Dante would grow into a force that would eventually surpass his own father. In his own titanic battle, Dante had cast down Mundus once again in his attempt to conquer the human world.

Mundus's rage was so profound, it was felt across the entire demon world. Entire swaths of Hell bore the brunt of the chaotic fury, and the hatred for Sparda's name and blood, which was already reviled, grew exponentially, to the point that no demon could fathom another demonic family emulating the Dark Knight's betrayal.

Which is exactly what happened.

* * *

Once again I shall attempt to write an actual story as opposed to re-writing and mocking one. This story is rather strange as it was born from a dream I once had, which was essentially a self-insert cross-over between _**DOOM **_and H.P. Lovecraft's work. I barely knew anything about Lovecraft's work, however, so I attempted to replace that with the world of Disgaea.

That was going nowhere, unfortunately, and I was about to give up on it entirely until I started to read the work of fellow fanfiction author _Night Companion_, whose incredibly beautiful stories on the _**Devil May**** Cry**_ universe gave me the inspiration to finish fleshing out what I wanted to write. I implore everyone that reads this to take a look at her work.

One thing that I feel is important to note about this story is that two of the main characters that I will focus on are Isabeau and Ravenous, who are original characters that belong to a man that goes by _Ex-Infenris_. The two were made for the free-ware fighting game engine "M.U.G.E.N.". I loved their design, and so I contacted him and was given his express permission to use them in fan fiction.

The cover for this story also depicts the two characters, and was drawn by the deviantArt user _RavenousCrucifix._


End file.
